Study Reveals Top 5 Email Marketing Mistakes

UK Email marketing provider EmailVision conducted a study of 1,700 clients to gain insight in to common email mistakes that can be easily corrected. Here are their top five mistakes:

5. Trying too hard – If you are using HTML, keep it simple and readable. Save the fancy java script for your website (and landing pages!). This will help ensure maximum success in a wide variety of email clients.

4. Right to reply – Make sure you are ready to field replies and that they don’t get lost in an unchecked “[email protected]” inbox. Many Prospect Insight users also opt to use the “Make the ‘From’ address the prospect’s assigned user” option for an even more personalized effect. You can gain important feedback as well as sales opportunities by paying attention to email replies.

3. Missing information – Personalizing emails using variable tags is a great technique – and Prospect Insight makes it easy by having a tag for each field available right in the email builder. If you’re using this feature, you’ll want to make sure you have a very complete collection of prospect data so you don’t get stuck with a “Dear ____,” in your email. Of course, the safe way to send is to make sure you set up a default field value in your field settings to fill in blanks with “Valued Customer” or something similar.

2. All image but no text – While attractive images may be eye-catching, keep in mind that many ISPs don’t automatically download images. Creating a message that is a mix of text and images ensures that even if the recipient doesn’t load images, they will still absorb your major messaging points. It is also a good idea to make at least some of your links non-images to provide the opportunity for click-throughs even without the images loading.

1. Stopped as spam – Of course, the number one mistake is not doing all you can to eliminate practices that will get your message caught in spam filters. EmailVision reminds readers that words in subject lines such as “WIN A GREAT PRIZE” will not get past spam filters and we’ve brought you similar tips in the past.